SPEAKERS

Dylan McCabe, Bill Jagger

 

Dylan McCabe  00:00

Roofing mastery podcast episode number 18. Welcome to the roofing mastery podcast. My name is Dylan McCabe. And in every episode, we give you a seat at the table as we interview owners and CEOs of general contracting roofing companies and also industry experts, so that you can get the tactics and the strategies, you need to take your own position and company to the next level. Now, in this episode, I interviewed bill Jager. He’s an independent insurance agent with Colorado insurance, we are going to talk about how to form strategic relationships as represent general contractors with insurance agents, okay, there’s a lot of synergy there, there’s way to send each other referral business, there’s a way to help educate each other’s customers, there’s a way to up your customer service game, it’s just a great way to do business. So we’re going to get into all of that, you’re going to get a lot out of this. And also, just as a property owner, you will get some tips from bill on how to really make sure you’re making the best decisions there. Now, before we go into that, I have one big question I have to ask, do you have a grip on your business? Do you have a 10 year target? Do you have a three year plan? Do you have core values? A core focus a marketing niche? Do you have a plan of how to get there with measurables? Do you have all of the people in your organization, the right people in the right seats? These are the kinds of questions we address in our roofing CEO groups, I would encourage you to schedule a free discovery call, we’ll send you our short 20 question assessment that will expose major gaps in your organization that are preventing you from scaling or sustaining a successful business. And we’ll talk with you a little bit about our roofing CEO groups and how they are unlike anything else offered in the industry at this moment, and how you can get exceptional feedback from a peer group of other owners and CEOs to help you get a turning point in your business and take it to the next level in a sustainable way. Alright guys, just head over to roofing mastery.com. You can either schedule a discovery call, or you can start by taking the quiz and we will go from there. Okay, let’s jump into this interview with Bill Jagger. Alright, as I stated, We have special guest on the show bill Jagger, he’s an independent agent with Colorado insurance bill. Thanks for joining the show man.

 

Bill Jagger  02:14

You are welcome. Thanks for having me on.

 

Dylan McCabe  02:16

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m looking forward to this number one, because you and i, you and i have already formed a strategic partnership to add as much value to our clients as possible. And I think there’s a lot of roofers and general contractors out there that aren’t just leveraging the power of relationships enough in the industry. So before we get into all of that, and how it’s helpful to both sides, just share your background a little bit and how you got into the insurance industry.

 

Bill Jagger  02:43

Sure. Well, the first thing, you know, this is, it’s been kind of a long path to to where I am now. But you know, I’ve always had family members in a way and, you know, folks that are close to us that have been in insurance. And for whatever reason, it’s been, you know, just kind of something that seemed natural. It took a while to get here. But I’ve had a kind of a always had sort of a dual career of finance and sales. And so when, couple couple years ago when this guy was presented to me and had a connection to actually had a connection to Colorado, even though I’m in Texas, but you know, that that connection to Colorado and having sort of that blend of finance and insurance and, or finance and sales, and then also, you know, just straight up helping people understand something that most don’t really want to understand or don’t understand, for sure. It just appealed to me and having it, you know, having having that kind of come to come around in the right at the right time. How sort of how, how I got here, but I’ve been in sales for for a long time, either in finance or, you know, something related to finance. And so it seemed to work out well.

 

Dylan McCabe  04:13

Well, it’s it’s an interesting topic, because I know as a homeowner, when I when I came across your path I was looking for I was looking to change my policy, and I wasn’t happy with the customer service I was getting with the company I was with because I asked them some questions about Hey, what’s the difference between this kind of policy in this kind of policy are, you know, I asked him to give me some quotes, and can you help me understand why one of these is $1,000 more a year than another? And they really just gave me kind of a canned response. And so at that point, I thought, you know, as a homeowner, I just don’t know enough. So I need to look around and when I spoke with you, you really took the time. I mean, I think we must have talked for at least 45 minutes where you were just walking me through step by step the different items so it’s so clear to know the value You that You get as a homeowner, when you have great customer service from somebody like you an agent like you that takes the time to educate people. But let’s discuss the strategic relationship, roofers and general contractors can have with insurance agents. When I know one of the things that you and I have done is if you have a homeowner policyholder, that has some questions about Storm Damage, one of the things you like to do is send them my way to go look at their roof. Can you kind of unpack that for the roofers, in general contractors listening to this?

 

Bill Jagger  05:34

Sure. Well, you know, and as, as just for everybody to understand, I am just a, you know, I’m an agent, not so much a insurance adjuster. But it seems to be a pretty common, you know, common point of discussion with people in Texas, people in Colorado, actually, they’re, they’re the top two states, as far as weather related claims on on, on homes and roofs. So, a lot of folks are still always curious on whether they are getting a good deal, whether they’re damages, you know, maybe once a look at their house, even though they’ve kind of put it off because they don’t want to pay a deductible. You know, there’s, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of things that we can do to you know, ask questions to homeowners, and help them understand. You know, what, at what point, it would be good to, you know, to talk to somebody like yourself, who is a, you know, who’s a professional, and also willing to do, you know, a quick assessment for, you know, for little money or for free, and, you know, help women get educated just like we get get educated on the insurance side.

 

Dylan McCabe  06:54

Yeah, and for us, it’s been great, because there’s, there’s situations where you may say, Hey, I think you ought to talk to Dylan, he can do A free roof inspection for rain tie general contracting, and we go out there and look at it, and we have a very educational sales process. But for you as an insurance agent, I mean, I would be thinking, there’s some guys out there that might be thinking, well, I don’t want to tell a roofer to go look at it, because then he might just say, yeah, file a claim file a claim file claim. But that’s obviously that’s not our case, we want to just educate the homeowner on what they need, and in many cases, will go out there and say, you know, there really isn’t enough Storm Damage, we don’t, we don’t think you should file a claim, we think you should just wait until a real storm comes through. Because the last thing you want to do is file a claim and pay your out your deductible. At least in Texas, with most companies, you’re out your deductible. then six months later, you have another huge storm come through, or no, you know, no lie, I’ve got a you can’t see it on on my wall here. But I’ve got one of our yard signs. And it looks like somebody shot it with a gun repeatedly because we redid a roof on somebody’s house. And literally the next day after we put the roof on, and other massive storm came through, and it was baseball sized hail, and they had to file another claim and get another roof.

 

Bill Jagger  08:14

Yeah, it’s, um, it’s timing is timing is important. You know, it is everything. If you know, and it’s kind of interesting, because when we go to get anybody signed up for insurance, there are reports that we can pull that, that help us understand when, you know, any kind of recent action activity has been, you know, basically done on the house. So there was a catastrophic damage, you know, in 2016, we’re going to know that and insurance company is going to know that they’re going to assess the risk. Every time we, you know, pull information on the house. So that’s, you know, that is important. A lot of actually a lot of customers like to get that report just so they can see it. Sometimes even real estate agents can benefit from some of that history that they maybe have not plugged into.

 

Dylan McCabe  09:15

Well, that’s a good point. And the reason I think that kind of goes into the next thing, which is the lack of knowledge that roofers have about insurance policies. And in fact, we are not allowed to consult the customer or the homeowner on their policy, because of applause the unlicensed practice of public adjusting. So I love having a strategic relationship with you because I can say, hey, look, I know a great insurance agent bill Jagger with Colorado insurance. He’s very knowledgeable and he will walk you through the process and educate you on what your what your policy entails. When you have storm damage or when you have issues with your your property. And I can send them to you and you can break it down but I can’t and so kind of explain. I think There’s a lot of general contractors out there that aren’t leveraging this scenario enough. But explain what’s one of the biggest things that homeowners Miss, when they are thinking about what kind of policy to get for their home, especially in Texas and Colorado?

 

Bill Jagger  10:15

Well, here’s a, there’s a couple of things in, and I can give you examples, actually. But one of the one of the first things, I mean, people are absolutely sure, most of the time, they’re absolutely sure, they’re never going to need homeowners insurance. And I don’t know why that is, maybe that’s because they’ve, you know, they’ve had no claims in their, you know, years and years of owning a home. But, so what they’ll do is they’ll make that mistake of going out and finding cheap insurance. And earlier, just for examples, you know, earlier this year, somebody that that I got signed up, has a brand new half million dollar home, and yet had a policy on it for $900 a year. And it turns out that if they had looked at what actually was in that policy, and they were sitting on a 4% deductible, in case anything happened to the house. Okay. So I don’t know, I don’t know what a roof typically cost, but let’s just say it’s, you know, let’s say it’s $15,000 to replace the roof, you know, their half million dollar house, they’re not even going to get insurance coverage until they’ve got, you know, what would that be $20,000 of deductibles paid. So, you know, those are the kinds of things that we like to look at, and just make sure people really understand, are they getting what they’re paying for? And to even know that, you know, if the next hailstorm comes, that they’re gonna, they’re basically self insuring their entire roof? So, you know, that’s one example. There’s, you know, there are, you know, there are some other other things that we will do to, you know, to help them again, look at the history of what’s been going on with that house with it with that policies, maybe that they’ve had. And, you know, lots of little details that I think we’ve really kind of interesting for them to understand what, what goes on when they, you know, when they own a homeowner’s policy?

 

Dylan McCabe  12:36

Yeah, I think one of the things that came up recently is a referral that you sent to us terrain type general contracting, we went out there and looked at the roof saw plenty of storm damage, engage the customer in the educational process and built out a scope of work. And the homeowner, let us know that his policy actually went from a 1% deductible to a 2% deductible after a certain timeframe. And he was unaware of that. So when he went to file a claim, he learned to his disappointment that his deductible had gone up. So he’s going to be out of pocket, you know, over $7,000, to get a roof replacement. So this is one of those things that why I like having a strategic relationship with you is I can tell a homeowner, hey, you really need to talk to your insurance agent, find out what what your out of pocket costs are, what the details of your policy are, because I’m not actually allowed to educate you on that or to consult you on that. But your insurance agent is and you want to make sure you don’t have any gotchas in there that you, you know, like you mentioned, you’re cutting corners on your annual costs, and it’s going to bite you later down the road when you really need coverage.

 

Bill Jagger  13:50

Yes, yeah, it’s, I would, I would have to, you know, really encourage everybody to, to understand, you know, what they’re, what they’re buying, and what they’re what they’re getting themselves into something else that, you know, that I’ve seen before, too, as you’ll see, you know, at times, you’ll get some, some folks that, that have insurance on their home, or they’ll have insurance on their roof especially. But there’s a difference between replacement cost of that roof and actual cash value of the roof. And understanding if what what’s in their policy and so they you know, if they, if they understand what that looks like to them financially, I think it’s really important to be able to discuss that. And again, like you said, you probably can’t discuss this with them. But a lot of times if a roof is covered at actual cash value, and they’ve got a 15 year old roof, something happens tomorrow. That roof is now decline in value over those 15 years it’s depreciated. So what we, you know, we always want to make sure that we do is get somebody insured for full replacement costs or for you know, replacement value just to get them back to 100%. Like they were yesterday. And so that’s a big, that’s a big issue for a lot of companies, and every company offers either one of those options. So people need to be aware of that that can be buried in the fine print.

 

Dylan McCabe  15:34

And see, that’s just one of those things that as a homeowner, I mean, you’re just going to be a deer in the headlights. When you read those words, actual cost value replacement cost value in this 20 page document. There’s just no way. And that’s why I just keep saying this over and over again. But it’s just critical that roofers and general contractors have strategic relationships with insurance agents like yourself, who can take the time to educate the the roofer, but also, especially the homeowner, on what’s available, what to watch out for, and we can send each other business. I mean, I know, you know, a lot of the times when we do a roofing job, if the homeowner has a negative experience, they say, hey, do you know a good insurance agent? Um, you know, I’ve emailed mine three times, and it took a week and a half for them to get back to me, do you recommend anybody? It’s something we get quite often. So we love that positive strategic alliance that we can have with you to know that when I send a customer to you, they are in very good hands.

 

Bill Jagger  16:33

Well,

 

Dylan McCabe  16:34

let me let me ask you the converse scenario, what’s something you try to avoid? Because I know insurance agents get a lot of roofers reaching out to them saying, hey, let’s work together, let’s send each other business, what’s something that you see as a red flag or something you would want to avoid as a as an insurance agent?

 

Bill Jagger  16:53

Well, if you if you’re talking about the relationship between roofers and insurance agents, I’ve seen this a lot where somebody wants to get into a, into a relationship, and say, you know, I’ll pay you so and so I’ll give you certain percentage of a commission, you know, you send me business and so on. And that can, you know, I’ve heard it from both sides from both parties. But But no, and so, we definitely try to avoid, we have to avoid that sort of conflict of interest. It’s, it’s not, it’s not tip for tat, it’s not, you know, it’s nothing other than just, you know, just trying to be on the up and up, making sure that the, it doesn’t really, if you start worrying about who’s, you know, evenly referring each other, it gets out of balance, and then people get emotional about it. And in most states, it’s illegal. So, you really want you can’t build a good, you know, referral network, unless it’s, you know, unless it’s all common, you know, even playing ground fair, fair game all the time. And I think what goes around comes around, right. But I, but I, you know, I’ve heard those stories where it’s, you know, people try to work out some kind of financial relationship, where, you know, typically, one person is going to end up benefiting more than the other until they, you know, part ways.

 

Dylan McCabe  18:29

Yeah, and I think that scenario is just, just so unwise for several reasons, like you said, you you cross an ethical barrier there where the money becomes more important than the customer. But number two, let’s say you, we decide, okay, every customer you send me, if it results in a roofing job, I’ll pay you 500 bucks. And we decide, and every customer I send you, if it results in a signed agreement, you pay me 500? Well, if I send you one, and you send me one, it’s a total wash. I mean, neither one. So it’s just a total waste of time. It’s it’s just, I had one guy from a large insurance agency here in Dallas, do that with me. We were talking and I said, I actually posted on Facebook, does anybody know any great insurance agents that I could talk to, to, to send customers to? This was several months ago, and they mentioned this guy, and, and right out of the gate, I mean, we talked maybe for 10 minutes. And right away, he started mentioning how he wanted to set up a referral fee and all this stuff. And I’m just like, man, I don’t want to I’m going to run around town not getting paid inspecting roofs a lot of the time for you. And you’re not going to pay me for that. And I’m going to send you some people it’s not going to result in business and you’re not going to pay me for you know, we’re not let’s just avoid that topic altogether. So I’m glad you said that.

 

Bill Jagger  19:49

Yeah. Yeah. I think like I said, I think it does. It kind of muddies the water with relationships. I think you you know I don’t think it’s similar to doctors, you know, doctors don’t don’t think they get paid if they refer somebody to an orthodontist. Right, or whatever it is. It’s it’s professional courtesy. And I think I think it works out better if we can kind of stay at arm’s length. But I think it’s also useful to have that partnership.

 

Dylan McCabe  20:24

Yeah, absolutely. Well, in your opinion, what, what’s the first step and owner should take when they do, you know, especially in Texas and Colorado, big storm comes through? How can a homeowner know whether they should just call you or they should call a roofer? What’s the best way to navigate that? What’s the first step they should take?

 

Bill Jagger  20:46

Well, you know, the, it’s a great question. And most of the time, if they do call us, it’s hopefully they you know, in a way, it’s nice that they call us because they can trust our opinion. But I think one of the first things they actually should do is, instead of just going right to the insurance company and filing a claim, I think we will, I know that the best thing that should really do is actually contact a good roofing company first. And it’s, you know, it’s not a it’s not a setup, it’s not. But that is, in fact, I mean, it’s they really need to understand, you know, is there something is there some sort of professional opinion, that can be, you know, gained or at least use so that they can then go to the insurance company with, with a, you know, an actual claim, they need to have grounds for that claim, they need to have reason to at least look into it. I mean, that’s what insurance is for us to, to fix a roof, but they really should have it have a pro, take a look at it first.

 

Dylan McCabe  22:03

Yep. And one of the things we like to do is, is we like to generate that trust with homeowners, you know, like, if you send me to, to one of your customers and say, Hey, you need to talk to Dylan at rain tight, general contractor, you can do a free inspection of your roof, we actually like to be able to educate them. And even if they, if they don’t have a lot of storm damage, we could say, you know, you could file a claim, but it’s kind of 5050 because you’ve got marginal damages, kind of on the border of what typically, you know, insurance adjusters are going to look at, but we really recommend you just wait, because this is Texas, we’re just entered hail season. And you may get another hailstorm. And so wait until you’re certain you’re going to be out of pocket your deductible. And you don’t want to file a claim and then have to file another one a month later. So we actually generate more trust that way, though. Because if I go to a homeowner, and they’re looking at me as a sales guy, and I sit there and tell them, I don’t think you should buy from me right now. It just generates more trust and down the road. They’re gonna tell their friends and neighbors Hey, I talked to Dylan and he didn’t try to sell me hard on a roof. He actually told me, I don’t need a new roof yet.

 

Bill Jagger  23:12

Right. Right. And I think, well, you get to that point where insurance adjusters and claims folks have their own opinion. And roofing companies are going to have sometimes a different opinion. But I think, you know, I think getting the roofing company evolved earlier in the process, who would actually benefit benefit them? And it shouldn’t cost them any mind to do? Yes,

 

Dylan McCabe  23:46

no, for sure. So let’s talk about deductibles. Because one of the things that’s come up recently is the house bill that was passed in Texas. And it basically states that a roofing company cannot eat the homeowners deductible. So some roofing companies and sales guys are going oh my gosh, what are we going to do? You know, people have been eating the homeowners deductible for years. And they can basically have a sales pitch that says, hey, if you had Storm Damage, we’ll come to a free inspection. If we suggest that you might want to file a claim, you can file a claim and you we will give you a new route for the cost of your insurance, the insurance will pay out and you are not out of pocket anything. So with this new this new house bill that was passed, some guys are going How am I going to sell a roofing job now you’re telling me I gotta tell the homeowner their out of pocket their deductible? What are some of the things that a homeowner should know and a roofer should tell the homeowner to talk to their agent about regarding deductibles?

 

Bill Jagger  24:48

Well, yeah, and that’s like you said you won’t get into the conversation but there is. You know, there’s a lot of money that’s possibly at stake when you start talking about About deductibles. I mean, the example I gave where somebody was, you know, had cheap insurance but a 4% deductible. That is, that’s not okay. And in our book, but it’s, it’s also important to understand that, you know, homeowners insurance has two different deductibles. One of them is for wind and hail, which is what mostly affects, you know, roofing. But, you know, that can be anywhere from 1% to four, sometimes more, I guess, but I’ve never heard of anything more than four. And then you have really all the rest of it. So you’ve got it’s basically called all perils or other perils. You know, when grandma drives into the garage and hits a kid supposed, you know, those kinds of things, those typically have all other perils have a lesser deductible, something like $1 amount, which is usually like $1,000. But then you go to wind and hail damage, and anything that’s, that affects the house, that that’s caused from wind and hail. That’s when you know, the separate deductible, that different millisecond deductible comes into play. We try to get it to, at least for us, we try to get it to 1%. Some, some companies in some zip codes, actually won’t let that happen. They actually have minimum deductibles of let’s say, 2%. So it’s good to understand that what I what we tried to do in every homeowner’s case is trying to get the deductible as low as possible, unless they have you know, less, that customer has a desire to have a higher deductible. And that does happen sometimes. But we will, we will do our best to try and help them understand that if there is a natural disaster, there’s something that happens, it’s lightning related or you know, windstorm or hail that, you know, they’re going to be out a certain percentage of the of the home’s value. And, and that’s a that’s a point to that’s kind of interesting, because it’s not the market value of their home, that that percentage is based on it’s actually the rebuild cost of the home. So if their market value was $400,000, let’s say. But the rebuild cost the insurance company knows is more than that 400,000 the homes actually insured at that rebuild costs, and the deductible is based off of that rebuild cost. Okay, so. So we just, you know, again, we’re just kind of walk them through scenarios that help them feel more comfortable about what you know what to choose.

 

Dylan McCabe  27:58

I think I think the interesting thing there is a lot of homeowners are totally unaware of the differences in deductibles unless they have a good insurance agent that educates them or they’ve just been burned by a big deductible in the past and all of a sudden they pay attention. Yeah, but but one of the things that stands out to me about that is that as a roofer, I should be telling my customers work with this great agent that I have, in my case, it’s you to make sure you can discuss issues of your deductible, ask the questions you need to ask. So that when something does happen, since we are in Texas, it’s gonna happen. You know, what you’ve got to work with. Now, how often do you see a separation between hail damage and wind damage? In the same claim? Is that something that you ever see come up as something that’s a separate item? Or is it typically hail and wind? Or, you know, cuz I’m thinking about this hurricane that’s about to go through Houston?

 

Bill Jagger  29:00

Yeah. It’s, it’s really not separate. You may see you’ll see causes for replacement be one or the other. Yes. You know, you can have crazy wind storms. I mean, there’s probably a lot of that kind of stuff going on in Iowa right now. Just from wind. But, but, ya know, if you have a policy that, you know, basically every, every homeowners policy when it comes to the roof, wind and hail are one, okay? Doesn’t mean that, that the damage has to be caused by one of those one or the other, or both at the same time. It just has to be one, you know, but that that sort of catch all is when inhale. Those are the two that that that type of deductible you know, that category falls into It’s usually a higher chance that 1% or 2%, that’s damage caused from that, because it’s typically going to be the roof, sometimes the siding of the house or something like that. But, but yeah, it’s usually wind and hail that affect the roof. And, you know, and those are kind of, you know, kind of one in the same, but it’s, you know, the damage doesn’t have to be caused by both at the same time.

 

Dylan McCabe  30:29

Gotcha. Well, I think we could go on talking about insurance and homeowners, and how roofers and insurance agents can work together, what would be a kind of a final parting word that you would have for the listeners to this show, most of which are roofers and we have some homeowners too, but it’s mostly roofers.

 

Bill Jagger  30:52

Can, can you repeat that again? I’m sorry?

 

Dylan McCabe  30:56

Sure. Yeah, I would just say, you know, as we wrap this up, what would be a final word or parting piece of advice, you would have the listeners this show as an insurance agent?

 

Bill Jagger  31:07

Well, I, my my advice to everybody out in the in the roofing industry is, is just understand that you guys are, you’re an important resource for insurance agents for you know, adjusting, obviously, everybody kind of has a, something there in common. I would encourage most of the, you know, most of the folks that are in the roofing industry to have a relationship or to with somebody that you really trust that will take the time to, you know, educate folks, I think you’re you’re better off in a lot of ways, by, you know, by educating the, you know, the folks that you’re going to work with, as far as what, you know, what’s, what’s about to happen, and who you trust. And, you know, if you can make that if you can add some value where there was never even a thought before, I think that’s, that’s critical. You know, everybody’s out there trying to trying to separate themselves a little bit. And I think if you have, you know, the right trustworthy person, or two, when it comes to insurance, roofing, you know, finances, you know, those kinds of things where they all come together, even real estate agents. A lot of that, you know, really comes into play and build a great team that somebody can, you know, really lean on for not just a certain one job at a time, but, you know, over and over again.

 

Dylan McCabe  32:51

It’s great point. We’ll bill with Colorado insurance. Thank you so much for joining the show.

 

Bill Jagger  32:57

You bet. Thanks, Dylan. We’ll talk to you soon.

 

Dylan McCabe  33:01

All right, great interview with Bill Jager and I appreciate him taking the time to do that. If this was helpful to you, please definitely go to iTunes and you can just go to rate this podcast.com slash roofing mastery or you can do it from your smartphone. whatever is easiest for you rate this podcast.com slash roofing mastery. If it’s been helpful, please give your feedback and give us a review and a testimonial a star rating and also a written rating as well. It really helps us stand out in a crowded marketplace. Alright guys, this is Dylan McCabe with the roofing mastery podcast and I will catch you in the next episode.